


It Takes Three To Make Trois

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: The Hour
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Post-Series 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:32:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“No, sorry, you’re going to have to be clearer: are we pulling Hector into our sordid affair or are you two pulling me into yours?”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Takes Three To Make Trois

**Author's Note:**

> Just finished Series 1, and in the calm before S2, the first line of dialogue here popped into my head and off I went. 
> 
> Un-beta-ed and very much a newcomer sorting through her OT3 feels.

“No, sorry, you’re going to have to be clearer: are we pulling Hector into our sordid affair or are you two pulling me into yours?”

“I notice there’s no third option.”

“Why should there be? You don’t really think that either of us would be in this without you?”

Bel says nothing; huffs a breath of air that might mean anything; avoids eye contact in a way that means everything.

“Oh, hell, Bel,” Freddie says softly, for once ignoring the rhyme and the joke and everything else besides, because that’s the whole point: that in the end Bel is all that matters, and Hector, whether he likes it or not, now comes along with Bel, and so Freddie has no choice but to accept him or hit the road, and quite frankly he’s more than a little bit scared – not in a way he’d admit out loud, but in the way that creeps up on you in the dead of night when you briefly emerge blinking from your own obsession and catch sight of yourself in the mirror, all crazed eyes and twitching fingers, and just for once see what everybody does – Freddie admits on very rare private occasions that he’s scared of what he’d be when cut loose.

_\- then we are not a free -_

Well. He has that much of a clue.

“We don’t work without you.”

“Oh, you work perfectly fine,” she tells him with a smile and a chuckle that might be performance and might be real, she’s so much better at that double standard than him and that’s why she’s the producer here. “Put you two in a room together and within minutes you’re teaching him lines and he’s volunteering to follow you to your protests. It’s rather inspiring to watch.”

He narrows his eyes. “We’re only in the room in the first place because you’re there too.”

“Well, that’s not always true, is it?”

“Moneypenny, you need to drop this self-pity lark, it doesn’t become you.”

“And you decide that, do you, James?”

“Yes, I do.” He nods. “Although if you need a second opinion I could get Hector on the line for you.” He picks up the receiver; poses with his finger over the dial, the tone droning in his ear, weight shifted to one side and both head and eyebrow cocked. “How do you want me to put it? ‘Hector’,” he slips into the accent he learnt from the Elms’ so easily, a sham but a well-worn one, “‘Hector Madden, I need you to comment on Ms Rowley’s shocking display of ignorance – ‘”

“Stop it,” Bel says, smacking him lightly on the arm.

“‘ – displays backed up by brutal violence – ‘”

“I mean it, Freddie, stop it.”

“You stop it,” he responds wittily, dropping the performance if not the receiver. “You can cut me out – ”

“Never,” she insists, so firmly that it makes him falter, when all the force of British censorship could never manage the same.

It’s just a stutter, the length of a blink, yet he knows his wonderful girl sees it; takes confidence from the fact that she’ll be able to read more there than he’ll ever be able to bring himself to say (outside of a performance, that is).

“ – _fine_ , but for the purposes of my point, Ms Rowley, you can cut me out or you can dismiss dear old Hector back to his wife, _but_ – ” he raises his finger from the receiver to cut off the retort that matches that exasperated roll of her eyes “ – the one person you cannot cut out is yourself.”

“Very philosophical,” is her comment, sarcastic and annoyed, just the way he likes it.

“I try my best.”

“And that’s what you can manage?” She forces a smile – more noticeable this time – and shakes her head. “Stick to the news, Freddie; we both know that the heart’s not your area of expertise.”

“I don’t need it to be,” he reminds her – it should be a reminder – as he produces a cigarette with his free hand and breaks his eye contact with Bel to search his pockets for a lighter. “I’ve got you two.”

A click, and he raises his eyes to see Bel offering a flame. He accepts it; follows the line to see her smile, real and genuine this time. He likes it when Bel still lets the truth show through her producer’s façade: likes that she does it for him, which makes him feel as special as it always did (Freddie likes feeling special, it’s a weakness but it’s very much _his_ weakness), and that she’s started doing it for Hector, which should make him jealous but really only feels right.

He smiles back as he inhales, and no matter what else might change in their lives, they’ll always be able to look into each other’s eyes like this and everything else will fall away.

(There was a time, when Hector first arrived and Ruthie loomed so large in his head that he forgot what was really important – except that Ruthie was a story, and there’s nothing more important than the story, that’s what made Clarence’s words cut so deep in spite of all the rest – there was a time when he forgot to notice that Bel had started wearing glasses and Hector had tell him through trickery Freddie hadn’t even intended that there was an affair at work and Freddie had stopped looking into Bel’s eyes and really, really that should have been the danger sign long before the rest.)

Bel is warm and familiar and his anchor and his Moneypenny and so much more besides; but right now that isn’t enough. Right now they need their voice, and a mind that can actually make sense of all this. A mind more used to subterfuge and politics and navigating the passageways of a relationship that’s eroded like stone steps leading up the Parthenon or to St Paul’s, finding something new and pushing it past a ‘sordid affair’ into…well, into an even more sordid one, quite frankly, but undoubtedly all the better for it.

He smiles; exhales smoke as he briefly looks down to twirl the dial, the number not yet memorised but it’s such a bloody inconvenience having to phone when really all Freddie ever wants to do is invade and stake a claim to what he’s most definitely starting to think of as his (theirs).

(He remembers the first time he heard his own words in Hector’s mouth; remembers the thrill even then, the slightest edge of what might be.)

“Yes, Freddie?” comes the weary voice at the end of the line.

“You shouldn’t presume, Hector, that’s the way rumours start.”

“It’s well past midnight,” he’s informed, and he glances at his watch in the manner of a man who’s certainly grateful for being told as much but isn’t entirely sure why it matters. “Who else is going to call me at this hour?”

“I feel honoured.”

“Don’t.” A pause; Freddie, for once, says nothing, enjoying rather giving Bel a winking smile, answered by the sigh that is his and only his, except for now when it’s his and Hector’s.

Hector gives way first, of course. He (almost) always does. “What do you want?”

“Our producer seems a little down in the dumps tonight,” Freddie tells him, only grinning at Bel’s scowl. “I’ve tried, naturally, but it seems that on this occasion my winning charm and intellect can only do so much.”

“Now, Freddie, don’t put yourself down. That almost sounded as if you were admitting a fault.”

“And we wouldn’t want that,” Freddie agrees. “So, bring yourself and something alcoholic that you won’t make a face over behind my back.” He thinks he hears a ‘humph’ that might well be a laugh. Of course Freddie knows about these things: he’s constantly terrifyingly hyper-aware of everything the two of them do; it’s unbelievably distracting and the only thing that seems to block it out is a good story, and even then they’re right there in the story too, up to the elbows, it’d be infuriating if it wasn’t so brilliant.

“I’m assuming I have no choice in the matter.”

“None whatsoever,” Freddie assures him, and when he grins to himself this time – regardless of whether Bel is watching, regardless of the fact that Hector most definitely can’t – it’s the brightest and best of all.


End file.
